Justice System of Pre-Islamic Arabia

Last updated: April 30th, 2025 at 12:39 pm · Est. Reading Time: 2 minutes

Pre-Islamic Arabia had devised its own justice system.  It was prevalent all over the Tribal Zone of pre-Islamic Arabia.

Need for Justice

No society is devoid of crime. Despite a loyal following of muru’ah and sunnah among the Arabs, crime did take place.

Source of the Law

The authority that generates the law is called the source of law.  These days, they are usually parliaments which promulgate laws.  In older times, they were kings.  Some scholars believe that the presence of the state is essential to create a law.  According to their paradigm, a human population in a stateless condition will essentially have no law.

This paradigm does not pass the test of objective observations.  All stateless societies had some kind of law.  Problem was enforcing the law on all members of the society.   Absence of state authority makes application of law difficult and sometimes impossible.

The stateless Tribal Zone of Arabia had some codes of law.  The source of their law was tribal custom.

Judges in Pre-Islamic Arabia

Early Islamic sources and pre-Islamic Arabic poetry points out two kinds of legal authorities.  One kind was single judges.  They used to judge interpersonal disputes.  Amir bin Zarib was one such judge.¹  Sometimes a single judge decided over tribal disputes.  He was called arbitrator.²

The other kind was a tribal assembly.  Tribal assemblies had jurisdiction to hear criminal cases. Amr bin Qami’ah, a pre-Islamic poet describes one such tribal assembly.

Yea, goodly is the Man, by my life, to whose protection thou mayst surely appeal;

what time in the tribal assembly the crier (munādī) raises his cry!”³

Appointment of the Judges

Tribal Zone of pre-Islamic Arabia did not have any authority to appoint a judge.  They were mutually agreed upon by the contesting parties.  The parties agreed upon abiding by the decision before commencement of trial.

Probably the tribal assemblies were slightly different.  Sometimes they settled interpersonal disputes of their own tribal members.  In that case it was highly unlikely that the disputing parties agreed upon them before hand.

Court Procedure

Both disputing parties had a chance to present their side of the case.  Innocence or guilt was proven by either of the three methods.  Either of the party took an oath, participated in a contest like walking on burning coals, or presented an evidence.⁴  Probably pre-Islamic times needed two witnesses to establish a crime.  At least the practice is documented in the writings of South Arabia, as noted by Schacht.⁵

The Guiding Principle of the Law

The principle upon which judgements were based was talion.  ‘A slain for our slain, a prisoner for each one of us captured, and goods for our goods’, demands Huzailis, a pre-Islamic poet.⁶

Further Reading

History of Islam, Social Structure of Pre-Islamic Arabs, https://historyofislam.org/social-structure-of-pre-islamic-arabs/

Footnotes

1. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq.  The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 52.
2. Muhammad Ibn Ishaq. The Life of Muhammad, ed. and trans. Alfred Guillaume, (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2013), 45 – 49.
3. ‘Amr ibn Qami’ah. The Poems of ‘Amr son of Qami’ah, ed. and trans. Charles Lyall  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1919), 13.
4. Zuhyr ibn Abi Sulma. Dīwān, ed. K. al-Bustani (Beirut: Dar al-Sader, 1964), 12.
5. Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 9.
6. Hudhaliyyin, Poems of the Huzailis, ed. John Godfrey Lewis Kosegarten, (London: Oriental Translation Fund, 1854), nos. 1 – 138.